This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Awww poor Musk. Maybe stop helping Russia by giving them access while denying Ukraine. Also fuck you for ruining Twitter .
Edit - apparently coverage on the Crimean coast was never activated. Still dickish for helping Russia. They're sanctioned up the wazoo and this might come back to bite him. Starlink is a recipient of US Federal Assistance and that can easily be leveraged.
Twitter was never good, it was just popular.
I like that you can follow scientists and authors directly at the source though.
It was by no means perfect, but it did become the defacto town square. The Arab Spring was facilitated in part through Twitter and George Floyd related protests were arranged, amplified and shared through Twitter.
There's plenty of incompetence in Musk, but a significant part of this "effort" was deliberate, as a favor to other like minded billionaires upset and frightened that the people had a working, maturing megaphone. They needed that to be broken, if not fully silenced, and musk was the pathetic piece of shit with daddy issues that the other old money billionaires could convince to do the work here as an attempt to gain their favor.
Like fast food.
Why are you repeating retracted fake news? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong
He denied the request by Ukraine to enable starlink in crimea because "it would make SpaceX explicitly implicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation" it would also have been illegal for him to do so because US sanctions prohibits it. The original claim about him disabling it is false and has been debunked. It wasn't enabled in the first place. He also later added that had the US government asked him to enable it he would have but they didn't.
I also find it hilarious that Russia being able to obtain a limited amount of terminals is somehow proof that Elon is helping Russia but at the same time you're conveniently ignoring the fact that there's thousands of terminals in use on the Ukrainian side which SpaceX sent there for free when the invasion happened. It's not Russia he sent those to but Ukraine.
Keep your thousands of space crap out of lethal range please.
out of lethal range
Would they not be?
Please try reading the article before commenting. This is the very first paragraph.
The FCC has once again rejected a Starlink plan to deploy thousands of internet satellites in very low earth orbits (VLEO) ranging from 340 to 360 kilometers. In an order published last week, the FCC wrote: “SpaceX may not deploy any satellites designed for operational altitudes below the International Space Station,” whose orbit can range as low as 370 kilometers.
That doesn't say anything about lethal range. It just says they won't allow it to be lower than the ISS's orbit. It could be because of "lethal range" or it could be that they want as little crap in the way of routes to and from the ISS.
I looked over the article (albeit very quickly) just in case you didn't quote enough of the article on accident and I didn't see anything about lethality. I could have missed it or I'm not reading between the lines (maybe missing their meaning in the article).
There's less than 10 kilometers between them and SpaceX has been known to have some go out of their designed orbit. So it has the potential to be and they determined the risk is not worth it.
Good call. Being crashed into with a 16km/s closing speed probably would be a hindrance.
"The FCC has once again rejected a Starlink plan to deploy thousands of internet satellites in very low earth orbits (VLEO) ranging from 340 to 360 kilometers. In an order published last week, the FCC wrote: “SpaceX may not deploy any satellites designed for operational altitudes below the International Space Station,” whose orbit can range as low as 370 kilometers. Starlink currently has nearly 6000 satellites orbiting at around 550 kilometers"
Fun fact: Tiāngōng, the Chinese Space Station currently in orbit, operates as high as 450km up (its currently at 360km). So its even closer to the Starlink constellation that the ISS is.
Ok FCC, then how do you plan on getting internet to me? Choppy terrestrial with 20% packet loss wasn’t working, Verizon lte with 2mbps upload wasn’t working, hughesnet…do we need to even mention it? Verizon dsl with 1.5/.25 isn’t even internet.
So please tell me how you’re going to do something about it other than deny me solutions? Starlink has been the best thing to happen to rural US in a long time.
If you want low latency go to urban areas. Otherwise accept medium latencies and stop to scream at the sky.
Does the International Space Station worthes safety means nothing to countryside people ? Are you so self centered ?
That’s not how it works?
Everyone deserves decent internet access. Restriction to access results in poverty.
It is quite literally how it works.
In addition, Starlink is not a good solution. It requires an infinite amount of rockets sent into low earth orbit forever, at a heavy subsidised cost paid for by American taxpayers.
You should be pushing for long-term solutions, not ones that literally fall out of the sky six months after the subsidies stop.
It requires an infinite amount of rockets sent into low earth orbit forever
True.
at a heavy subsidised cost paid for by American taxpayers.
How are American taxpayers subsidizing Starlink? The gov certainly isn't paying for Starlink launches or satellites . Starlink was also denied the $866 billion for government funded rural broadband/
Where is the tax money you're saying come from?
Well, they were going to get subsidies https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/spacex-starlink-wins-nearly-900-million-in-fcc-subsidies-auction.html
Now starlink mad they not https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/spacex-blasts-fcc-as-it-refuses-to-reinstate-starlinks-886-million-grant/
Right, I linked that in my post. So where is the taxpayer subsidy?
They got subsidies and were recently denied some. Don't pretend they never got any thank you.
As soon as SpaceX gets rid of the lunatic asshole billionaire pretending to run the company, I’ll stop cheering for bad headlines. Sorry about your internet service.
Why starlink exists is because the fcc is failing us.
The FCC and the government at large isn't to blame for this one. The ISPs collected the governments money to run high speed Internet to the rural parts of this country. Blame your ISP for not using the funds as intended. Maybe also blame the government for not holding them accountable for not delivering.
Pay to have fiber run to your house. Your living choice isn't our problem.
Additionally, get mad at the ISPs that took government funding to expand rural internet access and then didn’t. It’s always the governments fault with these people, never the corporations that are working day after day to shaft people
The government and corporations are the same class of people. The government could have prevented that with more conditions and involvement in the grants - but they didn't because they'll get kick-backs from their friends later on.
The article in this post is about the FCC refusing Starlink access to the very low orbit, which is close of the ISS orbit. Starlink wants access to this low orbit, for reduce latency. They don't refuse Starlink to send more satellites, so the internet access is still available.
What about rural farmers' children who want a good education? What about Cubans who are denied deep-sea cables service by the USA?
This is incredible technology that can help tens of millions of people.
"Just be a rich urban American" isn't a good answer for the rest of the world's population.
How do slightly higher latencies impact any of that?
You don't even notice those unless you play a FPS. Last I checked, pwning b00ns in CS isn't vital to a good education.
To make it competitive with local Internet, so all services work well. On high latency connections lots of stuff like websockets, etc. will struggle too.
It's competitive because as you describe, it's better than all other available forms of Internet access.
I used web sockets exactly once in an interactive piece of software. It worked perfectly fine with over-the-ocean latencies, which are higher than Starlink.
It's a non-problem.
I think Cubans would prefer access to other ressources before low lantecy internet. Because that's what the subject of this article. Starlink wanting access to very low earth orbit for reduce the signal distance, so the latency.
You can still have access to internet with a medium latency.
Then I'm the rest of the world. I live in an area with a density of 100people by km square. And I have fiber. Yes I'm from a west european country. My download is at more than 900mb, my upload the half. And I have a ping of 20ms.
So, what you're saying is, their current setup is working for you, and their new proposal for lower-orbit satellites isn't really necessary?
I love when people use the phrase "So, what you're saying is.." unironically.
The ISS is planned to deorbit in 2031: https://www.nasa.gov/faqs-the-international-space-station-transition-plan/
Wonder if the FCC ruling will change after it comes down?
That's still a lot of satellites floating around that can get in the way. And it doesn't even include the other LEO providers like Project Kuiper spooling up.
At some point there will be more satellites than is feasible to manage.
If they aren't already, will we start treating them like telephone poles or cell towers?
It's already a bit of a mess to manage, especially if you include the debris. Back in 2007 China blew up a satellite, and as of a few years ago that represented almost a third of all tracked space debris.. (it has its own wikipedia page) If these jokers ever start deliberately blowing up each others' satellites, we could end up in a situation where space becomes inaccessible.
What is the actual technical reasoning? These all have active tracking, I can't imagine it ever being an issue for missions (compared to defunct Soviet satellites with no tracking, like Kosmos 2221 and Kosmos 1408).
It'd be cool if Starlink could also be used to replace some base stations, although I guess the huge power requirements are an issue there.
It's a shame to see technology held back due to political interference like this though. Hopefully China will achieve it instead. Imagine how much this can help the developing world - like high-speed internet for Cuba (if the USA doesn't block it) and rural Nicaragua, etc.
I would expect it's the sheer number that would be BELOW the ISS. Active tracking or not, there's already plenty of things that influence when you can launch to the ISS. Having to navigate a route through 10,000 satellites between the earth and the ISS is just adding another obstacle they don't need.
The article seems to make clear, they can get this if they clear it with NASA. The implication being NASA believes this will be a problem for them, and if I had to choose who to believe between a company run by Musk, and NASA. I'd choose NASA personally.
Niet, comrade
Has Starlink considered just using really tall antennas? Should be a lot easier than all the risks associated with putting equipment into low Earth orbit.
